The Sad Heart of Ruth
by Min Daae
Summary: Jeyne, after the Red Wedding.


It was small things she remembered. The warmth he radiated when they lay in bed together. The way his forehead crinkled when he was thinking hard about something. The strange, shy, hesitant (naïve) joy she'd felt on their wedding day.

The way he'd cried into her shoulder when he'd heard of his brother's deaths.

"The King in the North is dead," the Blackfish said, his face like carved stone.

"Oh," she said.

~.~

"I want to come," she'd said, before Robb had left for the Twins. "I want to come and see the wedding, and meet Lord Edmure's new wife. I want to come north with you."

He had sighed, but smiled at her just the same. She loved to make him smile; he seemed to do it so seldom. "I'm sorry, Jeyne. But Walder Frey might take it amiss, and I _need _him. You will meet Lady Roslin when she returns to Riverrun after the wedding. You can get to know her then, and when the North is ours again, you can come to Winterfell, and I will be there."

"You're going to be away for so long," she'd said. "I'll miss you every day."

Robb leaned in and kissed her, and rested his forehead against hers. "Maybe we'll have a son when you see me next. I'll miss you too. Your mother will be here, though, right? It won't be so bad."

"I want to be with you," she said, and this time the sigh was faintly exasperated. She'd learned to tell the difference.

"I know," Robb said. "So do I. When the war is over, we'll be together in Winterfell. At home." There was longing in his voice, yearning.

In the morning, watching him ride away, she'd felt like she was having the heart torn out of her chest. As he began to vanish from sight, she felt a sudden rush of fear and galloped out to meet him, knowing his impatience as he tried to hush her, to comfort her. "I'll see you soon," he'd promised. "Before you know it, you'll be coming north, and wishing you were still in the warm south."

But they were never going to Winterfell together. Robb was never going home.

~.~

There was part of her that thought she never should have let him go, that she should have kept him in her arms forever and ever and ever. Jeyne wondered if his mother Catelyn had felt the same way, watching him ride to war. Wishing he'd stayed in her arms forever and ever.

She cried, but quietly.

She prayed for a son. A son with red hair, to make her think of Robb, to be his son and heir. If she could not have Robb, she would at least have a son that was theirs, something to make it real. They had lain together so many times; surely, surely.

Her mother came and sat with her in her room. "Listen, child," she said, and her mother's voice was calm. "You need to stop this. The Lannisters will be coming, and they will take this castle. We must prove our loyalty."

"Our loyalty?" Jeyne let out a wild, helpless laugh. "I married Robb Stark, mother. What loyalty?"

"You will say you were forced into it," said Sybell Spicer. "Unwilling. You will denounce your former husband, and our family may be pardoned."

"And if I have a child? What then?" Jeyne demanded, feeling anger growing in her belly, or perhaps deeper within. "What if I bear him a son? I still might."

"You will not," said her mother, chill and certain. Jeyne stared at her with wide, damp eyes.

"How do you…"

"I have been giving you herbs that will prevent conception," she said, calmly. Her mother's hands were folded in her lap, and Jeyne looked at them and wondered. "There will be no child."

"You said they would make me fertile," Jeyne whispered. Her mother shook her head.

"Jeyne, do not be foolish," she said.

"How could you," she demanded, feeling her eyes fill up as her red haired child faded and vanished in the dark. "How could you – take my son from me? I wanted-"

"You are a _Westerling, _Jeyne," her mother said, sounding frustrated, almost angry. "At the mercy of Casterly Rock, and Tywin has no mercy. You must-"

Jeyne stood up and backed away, feeling her face flush and heat up. "No," she said, "No, mother, I must do nothing. I'm not your daughter anymore. I'm a Stark."

Sybell sighed, sounding much like Robb when he was exasperated. "You don't understand," she started to say, but Jeyne screamed, "I'm a _Stark!_" and fled, weeping. There would be no son. There would be no Winterfell. There would be nothing for her.

~.~

It was several days before she discovered that her brother Raynald was dead as well. She felt badly that she grieved more for Robb than for her own blood. Raynald had cut the wolf loose, she heard. The beast had killed a dozen Freys before being brought down. It had taken a dozen Frey arrows to kill her brother.

She thought of the wolf, the great grey beast she'd seen with his muzzle red from battle, huge and terrifying, his teeth so sharp and white. She wished he'd been with Robb in the hall. Perhaps if that great creature had been at his side, her husband might have survived. Perhaps, perhaps.

Jeyne went to the godswood, because it was where Robb had always gone. She did not understand his gods, did not understand how he could find gods in these strange trees and the weirwood with its eerie face. Did not understand how none of them, not the Warrior or the Mother or these trees, had kept him safe.

She knelt beneath the red leaves and bowed her head. "Please, give him rest," she said. After a moment, she added, "And my brother Raynald, and Lady Catelyn." Lady Catelyn had been kind to her. She thought of Robb's mother, beautiful with her striking auburn hair, and sad, so sad.

She sat still. There was a rustle of wind through the leaves, and she thought of one more thing and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Please punish them all," Jeyne whispered, quietly. "The Freys and the Lannisters and all of them. Please punish them all. Because I loved him."

Her tears made a soft _pat _on the ground as they fell, and soaked in, leaving no trace.

She returned to the castle in silence, her hands at her sides, and kept her head high. "Lady Stark," said one man, bowing, and another said, "Your Grace." She wondered if she looked like Catelyn Stark, now, beautiful and sad. Like a northwoman, made from snow and solemnity.

Her mother came to her door that night, and Jeyne locked it against her and looked through some of the scraps of paper in the room she and Robb had shared, a few with snatches of his handwriting on them. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell him again.

~.~

"The Lannisters are coming," said the Blackfish, almost gently, "With an army. They will make a siege. I will keep you safe as long as I can."

"Can I do anything?" Jeyne asked, thinking of bandages, of carrying water. The Blackfish shook his head.

"No," he said, not quite curtly, and left her. Left her to feel lost and lonely, running a brush through her hair a hundred times, one, two, three…

~.~

Her mother caught her going down to get dinner. She'd taken to dining downstairs, to speak with some of the men, to show her face and look brave as she thought a Queen should. "Child, you're being foolish," her mother said.

Jeyne looked at her coldly, hoping her expression was regal. "Would you speak to your Queen that way?" she asked. Her mother's arm snapped out and slapped her across the cheek. Not hard, just enough to sting.

"You are not a Queen, not anymore," Sybell hissed. "And you were only ever a traitor's queen. Look around you. You need to think of your family, girl, not this foolishness. This castle will fall, and then where will you be? Do you want to die?"

Jeyne sniffed, feeling her eyes start to sting, but held herself together tightly. "They can kill me if they wish."

Another slap, this one slightly harder. "Don't be a fool. Don't talk like that. Won't you listen to me?" There was a note of pleading in her mother's voice. "Let this go. Come home, Jeyne. Back to the Crag, with me and your uncle and your sister. Please."

Jeyne thought of Robb, the wistful look in his eyes when he spoke of Winterfell, of _home. _The way his blue eyes were bright when he smiled, and the way that made joy leap in her heart.

She crumpled, burst into tears, and let her mother take her in her arms, stroking her hair and hushing her. "It'll be all right," her mother whispered. "It'll be all right, everything will be like it was, you'll see. It's all over now."

~.~

She wondered if it was her fault.

If she had never gone to his room that night, if she had asked him to stop, if she had said she wouldn't marry him, would Robb still be alive? Would he be riding north even now, with his mother and his wolf at his side? Would he maybe be in Winterfell by now, having defeated the Greyjoys, planning the next move in his war?

Was it because of her he was dead?

Jeyne locked herself in her room for a day when she thought of that, and curled up on the bed and tortured herself with pictures of him, maybe with a Frey girl on his arm and his iron crown around his head, nestled in the soft red curls she loved to touch. Alive, breathing, heart beating.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the room. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

She thought of his sisters, suddenly, and wondered if they knew. Robb had talked about them, sometimes. Sansa, red-haired like him and in love with princes and songs. "She'll like you, when we get her back," Robb had said, often. "She'll think you're very beautiful." And Arya, a little wild, a little feckless, but Robb smiled when he spoke of her. "Sometimes I think Arya was meant to be born a boy," Robb said, and then laughed fondly, until he remembered that she was gone and in danger.

When she'd heard about the Kingslayer being freed to bring his sisters back, Jeyne had wondered if maybe Robb wasn't a little relieved, because he might have at least those two back, if not the rest.

She thought of them now. Wondered if they wept like she was weeping, or if they were suffering too much to grieve. She apologized to them, too. They'd never be her sisters now.

~.~

It hurt so much. It hurt so much she thought she wanted to scream sometimes, but she didn't, couldn't.

Jeyne just waited, to see what would happen to her now.

~.~

Riverrun fell.

She was going back to the Crag.

There was an escort of armed guards all around her. She kept her head high and fought not to cry, not in front of these people. These people that she hated. _Punish them, _she thought, _punish them, please, do this for me. _

No fire rained from the sky. The earth did not open to swallow them up. Riverrun was dwindling behind her. _Wait, _she wanted to cry out. _Please, wait. I need…_

She did not speak up. Held her quiet inside her, and her grief, and her anger, like a child, like a red-haired son she'd never have.


End file.
